'Death of a Naturalist'

Pictured, our first edition copy of Seamus Heaney's first book, Death of a Naturalist, perceptively bought for the Masterman Library straight after its publication in 1966 by the then Librarian, George White.

The flap reads:- "We are very pleased to publish this first volume of poems by Seamus Heaney, a young poet who already has an eagerly-appreciative audience in his native Ireland. Seamus Heaney grew up in a farm in Derry; and it is in particular the acute observation of the countryside and its people that gives his poetry its distinctive strength."

The book cost 18 shillings.